Def Jam: Vendetta Preview

At first, a game featuring the artists of a hip-hop record label may not seem all that enticing. After all, publishers and developers have tried mixing these two ingredients together before, only to see the resulting product fail miserably in the eyes of both critics and consumers. But Electronic Arts' Def Jam: Vendetta, a wrestling game featuring artists from the Def Jam recording label, has one element that has piqued the interest of even the most die-hard WWE wrestling game fanatic, and that element is AKI, the same development house responsible for Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy for the Nintendo 64, which is widely regarded as one of the most finely crafted wrestling games to date. As such, it's not really surprising that Def Jam: Vendetta plays remarkably like AKI's previous efforts, so much in fact that it appears some of the very same animations from No Mercy were used to construct Electronic Arts' first wrestling effort since its WCW games.

Def Jam; Vendetta features artists from the Def Jam label.

But when it comes to the actual modes in the game, Def Jam: Vendetta differs quite a bit from the likes of Wrestlemania 2000 or No Mercy. One major difference is the story mode, which is essentially the meat and potatoes of the Def Jam: Vendetta experience. In this mode, you can select from one of four fictional characters, including one that looks surprisingly similar to one of Capcom's Street Fighter II characters, Guile. Each of these characters has a varying level of skill in seven categories such as power, speed, grappling ability, defense, stamina, and charisma. While there is one character with reasonably balanced skills, you'll find that most of them are proficient in two or three skills, and much less proficient in the others. Thankfully, you'll have the opportunity to improve your character's skills in the story mode by winning matches and using the prize money to purchase better statistics, but it's worth noting that each skill becomes more expensive to improve as you reach the higher levels. Needless to say, you'll have to save up quite a sum of money if you want to max out a character's power or speed.

The wrestling aspects of the game are surprisingly deep.

The structure of the story mode is somewhat similar to that of Electronic Arts' NBA Street, in which you take on a series of opponents before taking on a boss character for that particular arena. After beating the boss character (which also unlocks the boss in the other gameplay modes featured in the game), you can move on to the next area and take on the next series of opponents in the hope that you'll eventually take on the man in control of this underground wrestling league. The boss characters in Def Jam: Vendetta are represented by the artists from the Def Jam recording label and include the likes of DMX, Redman, Scarface, Ghostface Killah, WC, and others. The artists have even lent their voice talents to the game, which gives their onscreen personas a little extra personality. It's worth noting that as you reach some of the later arenas in the game, the one-on-one matches are interspersed with a few tag team matches with the man who introduces your character to the underground Def Jam wrestling scene.

Sometimes you'll have to fight as one of the female characters in Def Jam: Vendetta while going through the story mode. At various points in the game, a woman will come along and show interest in your characters. When you meet the first female character in the game, she automatically becomes your valet, but when you encounter others, your valet and the new female character will start yelling at each other, which then leads to a confrontation in the ring. You can then select to fight as either of the two characters, but the one who wins the match will ultimately become your valet until you decide you'd prefer one of the new female characters that you encounter. Interestingly, you can also unlock pictures of the actual models that these characters are based on, either by spending some of your cash or by continuing to use a single valet throughout the game.